


Endgame

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: Kobayashi Maru, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ken endures his own Kobayashi Maru scenario, and his team finds a unique solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endgame

"Steady as she goes," says Ryu, and Ken knows even before he hears the sound of the snort that Joe is rolling his eyes. 

Ken hunches his shoulders. It would be so nice if everyone -- meaning Joe -- would take things seriously. 

It would be so nice, if Ken were not always the _only_ one taking things seriously... 

No, that isn't fair... Jun is also serious, checking her readings with alert regularity. Ryu too is more or less serious, at the helm of the Godphoenix. His nautical talk is an indication of being rather too into it than the reverse. 

But Joe and Jinpei are not paying attention at all -- and it makes Ken grit his teeth in frustration and annoyance. They're actually throwing something at one another -- for gods' sake, is that _plastique_...? 

"Both of you! Pay attention!" 

"To WHAT?" snaps Joe, the plastique vanishing suddenly into a utility pouch. "Jesus Christ, Ken, we've been flying up and down the coast for hours..." 

"Yeah," Jinpei, who is in an 'imitate Joe' phase, pipes up, "Jesus Christ, aniki..." **THUD** , the sound of a large gloved fist on the top of a small helmet. 

"Owww!" 

"I don't wanna hear that outta you." 

"But _you_ said it..." 

"Yeah, well. Quit copying me then." 

"Anikiii..." now Jinpei is appealing to Ken. Ken turns his back. He's getting a headache. 

"Sit down, brat." 

At least Joe is dealing with it for him -- sort of -- but Ken has no illusions that it's got anything to do with disrespect. Superstition, more like. 

Jun's got a proximity warning all of a sudden, a huge walking mecha rearing up at them out of nowhere. Must have been shielded from sensors until it got in this close -- much too close for comfort. 

"What is that?" So close in, its design is unfathomable. It's bristling with tubes. 

"Heads up, it's firing -- " 

Joe's right. A puff of smoke and there is a pair of missiles lazily winding their way toward the Phoenix. 

Just afterward, another little cloud puffing up on the other side, and another pair of missiles join the dance, not quite synchronized. 

It's bad luck to give gifts in fours. And it's a very unlucky present. 

"Warheads," Jun calls out grimly. 

"DIVE!" 

Ryu is on it. Naturally, the missiles follow, looping. The Godphoenix streaks down toward the sea, leading its pursuers. 

"Wait! If those blow up in the water -- !" Jinpei. "It'll kill all the animals!" 

"Joe." _I need you. Let me count on you._ "Can you shoot them down?" 

"...In my _sleep_ ," Joe snorts. 

"Then do it now! Ryu, pull up -- " 

"Aye, aye -- " 

Joe targets and fires, Bird Missiles deploying in neat arcs. Muffled thuds as they connect. The deck rocks under Ken's feet. 

"That was _close_ ," Ryu complains, but Jun cuts him off, 

"Incoming! Four more -- no, _eight_ \-- " 

"I've got it," Joe snaps. 

But Ken has spotted something else spinning toward them, obscured in the smoke of the missiles. 

"Ryu -- !" 

Too late. 

A horrific noise, then darkness. Jun's voice, frightened now: "We've struck a gravitic mine. We've lost all power!" 

Falling. The missiles are still coming, swarming at them as they fall toward the sea. _That screaming noise, is it them or us?_

The Godphoenix may be amphibious, but she's not designed to enter the water sideways. 

"Can we get it back -- " 

"Not enough time -- ! Altitude -- " 

"Aniki...!" 

The fear in Jinpei's voice. Everything's serious now. 

_What do I do?_

The power comes back on, flickering between half strength and darkness. Joe lunges at the Bird Missile button, getting several missiles away while the lights -- and the launchers -- are functional. Ryu, swearing like the sailor he is, fights for control, gasping as the screen flickers on to show them they're not going to crash in the water at all. They're coming down on land! 

"Hang on!!" Ken shouts -- 

A thin scream from Jun -- 

The power goes out again. Dark, awful crunching, total noise, breakneck tumbling in the suddenly chaotic space of the flight deck. Ken collides with someone -- he has no idea who. 

Then, for a short space, nothingness. 

Then -- heat. Intense -- 

"Aniki!" 

THUD. 

There's -- a breeze -- ? Ken turns his head, and notes with strange calm that the top of the hull has been sheared clean away. 

THUD. 

" _Aniki!!_ It's _coming_ \-- " 

_What...?_ Ken's ears are ringing, but he tries to make sense of it -- 

Then he sees it -- focuses on it -- the mecha. Coming at them -- 

THUD. 

Coming right at them, its massive feet shaking the earth. Coming to finish them off! 

It could use missiles -- it surely has more -- but it appears that the commander in charge of it has different plans. What glory to Galactor to stomp the flaming Phoenix into the dust... 

THUD. 

"Everybody _get clear now!!"_

Ryu, staggering, is climbing down from the wreckage. Ken turns to find the others. 

THUD. 

Joe and Jinpei are behind a barricade of instrument panel and collapsed strut, bounded on one side by plasma fire. Jinpei is shouting, eyes wide and scared. It's too heavy. He can't get out. 

"Joe! Joe, help Jin -- " 

Joe is out cold. Something has hit him in the head. Blood trickles from his nose. 

THUD! 

Closer, closer, and it's moving faster now too. Jun is screaming, trying to pull Jinpei out, 

THUD! 

"Get clear!" Ken shouts at her, tugging at the strut, pulling with all his strength, the metal is hot, burning him right through the gloves, 

THUD! 

"JOE!" he screams, "WAKE UP -- " _I can't save you both! There isn't **time!**_

THUD! 

_Joe! You have to help me! You have to save yourself!_

Joe moans, eyelids fluttering, 

**THUD!!**

Jinpei is screaming, 

**THUD!!**

"JOE!" 

" _Aniki -- !_ " 

**THUD!!!**

It's too late. 

With a mighty rush of adrenaline Ken manages to lift the strut just enough to pull Jinpei through. Then -- there is time enough only to jump aside, as the massive foot of the mecha comes down, crushing the heart of the Phoenix. 

_CRUNCH --_

" **Joe -- !!** " 

**T H U D...!**

\--- 

_thudthudthudthudthud...!!_

Ken opened his eyes with a gasp, his heart beating so hard that it hurt. 

_Joe -- The mecha -- oh gods -- !_

From behind him: 

"That was great!" Jinpei's voice, fast and shaky and loud with adrenaline. 

Laughing. 

"Joe aniki got squashed like a _bug!_ Ha, ha! _Loo_ -zer!" 

"Shut up, brat. _You_ were the one wetting your birdstyle -- " 

"Was _not_ \-- " 

"Was so." 

"Was not!" 

Ken closed his eyes again, trying to stop the shuddering. He sat up, woodenly pulling the sensors off of his forehead and throat. 

Sounds of a short scuffle. Over it, Ryu's voice: 

"That one was pretty tough. Did you know, Jun? Sometimes I know, but this time -- " 

"Yes, I knew. But I always get caught up in it just the same..." 

Meanwhile, the scuffle had concluded. 

"Well Ken -- now you know, next time you should just go ahead and nuke the whales..." 

Howl of outrage. "ANIKI!!" 

Ken couldn't take another second of them laughing and chatting and fighting like they'd just been to a movie or on a scary amusement park ride. He was up off his sim chair and out the door into the corridor before anyone could say another word to him. 

"G-1." 

He stopped short. Nambu was emerging from the monitor room. 

"Performance review. My office." 

"Hai." 

Ken's eyes were still adjusting to the brightness of normal lighting, his stomach roiling with the terrible tension of the simulation. 

Only a dream, after all. But whereas Jun and Ryu -- and likely Joe and Jinpei too -- _knew_ they were in simulation at least some of the time, Ken never knew it, never realized. Each time, he took it seriously. Each time, to him, it was really happening. 

Over and over again, struggling uselessly against disaster. Over and over: loss of the mission, loss of the Godphoenix, loss of a team member... _loss of Joe_. -- Not _always_ Joe, but -- all too often. And sometimes, loss of himself -- automatically ending the simulation. 

Completely real to Ken, every time -- right up until the moment he opened his eyes, sick and shuddering with failure. 

His stomach had stopped roiling by the time he stood at attention in front of Nambu's desk, but the sense of loss carried back from the simulation remained freshly acute. 

"Well, G-1," said Nambu, "What do _you_ think of your performance today?" 

"Hakase," said Ken rather stiffly, "I don't believe these simulations are a fair test of my command abilities." 

"And why not?" 

"Because -- there's no way to _win_." 

Half of him had expected Nambu to correct him, to say that winning _was_ possible. The other half -- got what it had suspected all along. Confirmation of futility. 

A nod. "The no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face, has that never occurred to you?" 

_I'm not a child!_ "Yes, sir. It _has_. But -- " 

"But...?" Nambu's cool gaze remained on his face. 

Ken bit back his angry protest. Was the whole thing... a test of character? Could he take much more of this? Galactor could begin showing itself in the world anytime, would they be ready in time... would _he_ be ready, ever...? He had resigned himself to kill, but -- Would he really find himself forced to make a choice that would cost him all of his soul at once? 

_Joe aniki got squashed like a **bug!** Ha, ha! _

NO! 

He _needed_ a chance (however remote) that winning might be possible, so that he had something to strive for... 

_I must be strong enough. I will be strong enough._

He was no longer thinking about the simulation. 

_I'll do it. Somehow I'll do it. Beat them, and bring my team home whole. I swear..._

"You'll be doing it again tomorrow," said Nambu, looking away from Ken now, down at a file on his desk screen. "Be on time." 

Ken's stomach sank, but his face remained impassive, soldier-hard. "Hai." 

"Dismissed." 

\--- 

There he is. Finally! 

"Hey, Ken..." 

Jesus Christ. Is he _speeding up?_

"Ken. For fuck's sake, will you wait up!" 

Joe has to grab him by the arm in the sub bay. "Ken, will you just -- !" 

And even once he's swung him around Ken won't look at him. 

"All right, go ahead and hit me then," says Ken. "Get it over with. I have things to do." 

_Huh?_

" _Hit_ you?" Not like he doesn't do it a lot, but why would he right _now?_ "What the hell for?" 

Then he gets it. "Hang on! You think I'm _mad_ at you?" 

Only then does Ken look up into his eyes. 

Incredulous, Joe has a real head of steam building up now. 

"Jesus Christ! You dope," shaking him by the arm before Ken pulls it away. "For what? Helping _Jinpei?_ What do you think, I'm some schmuck that'd get mad at you for saving the _kid_ instead of me? It's just a sim! It's not like it's _real_." 

Now Ken's mad. "It's real to me!" he shouts, right in Joe's face, and shoves him. "You're supposed to _back me up_ , you're supposed to help me! And YOU'RE NOT HELPING ME, never taking anything seriously! You think it's _funny?_ Making me watch you _die?_ You're supposed to be able to save _yourself!_ Aren't you?" 

That stings! And having Ken in his face automatically puts Joe on full counterattack mode. 

"Sure, in _real life_ ," he snaps, "but why should I bust my balls in one of Nambu's _dreams?_ And anyway I still _would've_ saved myself -- and the kid! -- only _somebody_ slammed into me in the dark and knocked me out..." 

Shit. This is the wrong thing to say, he realizes, as Ken's face twists in guilt. Well, now he knows who _somebody_ was. 

"And anyway -- I _tried_ to tell you it was a dream!" Joe adds quickly, before Ken can get started again. 

That pulls Ken's attention back to him, sharp. "What are you talking about? You were the one throwing stuff at Jinpei..." 

"Ken. We were throwing _C-4._ That's too stupid for even Jinpei to do in real life." 

Ken is frowning, but just then the lights and bells go off to signal a sub coming in. 

\--- 

Ken's heart was still pounding with anger and mortification as he slipped away from Joe. 

_That's too stupid for even Jinpei to do in real life, said Joe._

Damn him, but he was right. Ken _had noticed_ the absurd detail of the plastique, yet it had passed over his sensible mind and been accepted... How _could_ he have thought that was real? 

_It's just a sim,_ said Joe. _Why should I bust my balls in one of Nambu's dreams?_

But it was real to Ken. Every time, _real_ \-- each terrible choice, every soul-crushing failure. Not until each time he woke, heart thudding, a howl of loss trapped in his throat, did he know that it had _not_ happened, that his team were all still alive. 

_You'll be doing it again tomorrow_ , said Hakase. 

_...Hai._

\--- 

"Brat. C'mere." 

"Huh...?" Jinpei doesn't turn his eyes from the Z-Box game he's playing on the big screen, his little thumbs going a mile a minute on the controller. "What is it aniki..." The screen blooms with explosions, casting orange light over the kid's snub-nosed face. 

"I said _c'mere_. I..." -- _dammit_ \-- "...need-you-to-help-me-with-something." Embarrassing, but true. 

Jinpei actually turns away from the game, lowering the controller to stare at Joe in amazement. "You _do_...?" Then, suspicious, "...help _cooking_ something, you mean...?" 

"Nuh uh. Mission. Let's go." 

The kid cocks his head to one side quizzically, like a puppy. "Mission...? But the bracelets..." 

" _Secret_ mission," clarifies Joe. 

"Oh!" and Jinpei tosses the controller aside, bounding up. "OK!" 

Joe could have asked Jun, but Jinpei is eager enough to help, especially once he finds out what kind of secret mission it is. Besides, asking Jun would limit the scope of what he can pull on Ken to the realm of the tasteful. 

"Sure aniki -- I can get us in there pretty easy." They're in one of the tech offices, and Jinpei is pounding away at a little portable that he's jacked in to one of the office computers. "But what're we doing once we're in?" 

"Something... well, funny. That hopefully, Nambu can't see, but Ken can." Ken has such a stick up his ass about these war games, let's see him get through one with a straight face after Joe gets through with it. 

"OK," says Jinpei, grinning, his eyes flicking over the little screen. "This is it. 'Simulations'. 'REM Control'... Hm. There doesn't seem to be one central program for the sim, aniki. It's a whole lot of processes all working together. I don't even know how we could do something here that would be sure to work..." 

Joe looks closely at the screen. "How about... the chairs themselves? The sensor controls..." 

Jinpei's fingers are already flying. "OK... Yeah... Huh. That's weird." 

"What is?" 

"Look... There's ours, and there's Ken aniki's. They're different. Ken aniki's has more data in the stream. A whole _bunch_ more." 

_What?_ "Get me schematics." 

"Right here." 

_He's right._ Although the chairs look identical in the room, the one in front where Ken sits has additional circuitry. "What's it for...?" 

"I don't know... Hang on." Jinpei clicks through screen after screen. "It's something... 'beta'. I don't know what they mean by that though. And 'H-reflex amplitude'." 

Joe frowns. 

"Is it something to do with... dreams...?" 

Jinpei calls up another screen and queries the library net for 'dreams', 'beta', 'H-reflex', then nods. 

"Beta waves. They occur in the brain in Stage 5 or REM sleep... and they're associated with lucid dreaming. Just a second, here's more..." 

By the time they figure it out, Joe is so mad he could rip off Nambu's head and spit down his neck. _You son of a **bitch!** _

Ken is _actively prevented_ from realizing it's a 'dream' -- by a device in his chair that blocks beta waves in his brain. Not only that, but he is immersed in a much more detailed sensory experience, and is much more closely monitored -- because it's a _command_ simulation. 

_Why do they have **us** plugged in at all?_

_For realism_ , he decides. Because the computer couldn't manufacture all of that _and_ keep so many characters on track well enough to mimic their responses. Maybe to distract Ken too. 

Joe knows the simulation isn't perfect. He can always tell quickly that it's a dream, because although the main controls in front of his face seem normal, other things on the bridge -- like the sign next to the fire extinguisher, for example -- don't behave normally when you stare at them for a moment. The letters become nonsense or wiggle around. And the more peripheral controls at his station don't always work right. As soon as Joe sees that, he knows he's dreaming. 

So -- _he_ can laugh off Ken saving the brat instead of him, can laugh off being Wile E. Coyote-d by a big stompy mecha. But now he can see why it isn't funny at all to Ken. Ken's trapped in it, unable to catch on to the fact that it isn't real, even in the face of something as absurd as throwing C-4 around like it was Silly Putty. 

He'd thought Ken was getting so uptight about _performance ratings_. Not... not taking it all to _heart._

They're running Ken through a maze with _blinders_ on. Making him _believe_ he's choosing between their lives. _'You think it's funny? Making me watch you die?'_ Jesus! 

"Aniki... what do we do?" 

"Shut down that wave blocker," snarls Joe, at once. _Take the blinders off._

Jinpei hesitates. "I think Hakase would prob'ly notice that," he frets. 

"So what?" 

"Aniki... if we're gonna be _obvious_ , we may as well just blow the chairs up." 

This is true. 

"Well, _you_ got a better idea?" 

"Maybe..." Jinpei stares thoughtfully at the screen for a moment, his thumbs unconsciously twiddling in the air. "A, um. Whaddyacallit... Compromise. We can't shut the blocker _off,_ but what if we turned it way _down_..." 

"Uh huh..." Joe frowns. "Then what?" 

"Then..." Jinpei grins. "Like you said. Something funny." 

\--- 

Ken sat down in his sim chair, his spine so rigid it was hard for him to recline. But the chair had no other position. 

Behind him, Jun said helpfully, "We'll do our best, Ken..." 

She wanted him to turn around and look at her, or speak, Ken knew, but he could only nod as he tried to steel himself for the ordeal. Would it be the stomping mech again? he wondered dully, as one of the techs affixed the sensors... Or the one with the cold green killing-ray that cut the Phoenix -- and Jun, screaming -- in half? Maybe the one where they all drowned, crushed by pressure as the Phoenix plummeted too deep into the ocean, hull rupturing... He had started to see these things in his own dreams, now. 

Joe and Jinpei were quiet, for once. Perhaps they had been up all night playing video games. Ryu was already asleep -- his light snore was just audible from the back. 

The techs left. The lights dimmed. A soft, familiar tone from a speaker in the wall... the subliminal hum of machinery. Ken closed his eyes, his stomach twisting with tension. 

_It's just a sim. It's not like it's real._

He told himself that again and again as he fell backward through the thickening mist, _It's just a sim, it's not like it's real_ , the words in Joe's voice now as he tipped back into whiteness... 

_Just... just a..._

(not... 

Real...) 

**whiteness...**

\--- 

_Whiteness._

White. 

His color. His birdstyle. 

He is on a mission. 

"Steady as she goes," says Ryu. 

Ken straightens up, his eyes vague, trying to remember... trying to remember, what they are doing... _Oh... yes..._ The moment he wonders, he can suddenly recall Hakase very clearly, telling them to intercept a large amphibious mecha spraying napalm over Emsterdem... 

That's... that's funny. His birdstyle... His birdstyle... 

...is sort of... _drafty_... isn't it...? 

Ken focuses his eyes, and to his abject horror, realizes that the whiteness he is looking down at is that of -- his very own briefs. And nothing else! 

_I've -- I've forgotten my birdstyle!_

How _could_ he have forgotten to put on his clothes? Before a _mission?_ Heart galloping, he darts a guilty glance toward Jun. 

_Urk!_

She sits there at her station, demurely alert as ever... in nothing but a pink bra and panties. With -- with -- 'Hello Kitty' -- on them. 

_Jun forgot **her** birdstyle... too...?_

How could _that_ happen...? 

Desperately Ken's mind tries to rationalize what he sees. Wrenching his eyes away from Jun before she can catch him looking, he turns toward Joe's station. 

Joe is looking back at Ken over a bare shoulder, eyebrows raised. 

Ken recalls, suddenly, a locker room conversation about how to avoid "wedgies" when changing to birdstyle. "Commando ninja," Joe had said, laughing. 

_Oh dear gods!_

No Joe! Don't stand up! 

"Aniki..." 

Ken's head snaps around. Jinpei is wearing Spider-Man Underoos. 

Up at the helm, Ryu seems comfortable in pinstriped boxers. At least it's not a _mawashi_ sumo strap -- 

_But! Why are we all -- in our underwear? How??_

"Aniki, is something the matter?" 

At this Jun looks over, politely concerned. Ken braces himself for her shrieks of outrage -- at his underwear, at Joe's breezy nudity, at her own Hello Kittiness -- which do not come. He looks incredulously at her. 

Doesn't it bother her? 

Can't they -- SEE he's in his underwear? 

Can't they see THEY are? 

_What is going ON here?_

Helplessly he looks to Joe again. 

Joe is _looking_ at him... expectantly. 

Naked. 

"Um... Ken...?" Jun's voice, hesitant but worried now at his continued silence. "Ken... hello...?" 

"Yo, Ken." Joe says, looking him in the eye. "Wake up." 

_Wake up._

They're all in their _underwear,_ on a _mission?_ In their underwear (or lack thereof) without even _Jun_ noticing, on a mission whose beginning he can't remember? The Godphoenix is supposed to be months from completion -- 

_Impossible!_

Ken is _dreaming!_

Swift breath, adrenaline -- a dizzy feeling of pleasure. He _knows!_

The Phoenix, the mission, the mecha they're going to fight, none of them are _real!_ It is all -- _'Nambu's dream'._

_'It's just a sim. It's not like it's real.'_

Ken stares at Joe, in epiphany. 

The weight that has been on Ken's shoulders -- shifts. 

It does not leave him, he has taken responsibility for it; but it _shifts_ , so that he can carry it more comfortably. There are others with him, to help carry it. 

_We... really are a team._

Joe's got my back. 

Ken lifts his hand, in a quick thumbs-up of acknowledgement. _Understood._

Joe gives a quick, brow-quirking flash of a grin, and turns away again. 

"Sorry, Jun," says Ken, glancing toward but not at her. Dream or no dream, he can't deal with the Kitty. "I was thinking. -- All right, team, everybody strap in. Jun, I want you to scan -- not just for the mecha, but for what's happening to the countryside. Jinpei, you help her. They may have some special shielding we don't know about." 

Jinpei grins up at him, gleeful and proud. Ken gives him a smile and a nod. Joe didn't do this by himself, and given the underwear, it is very doubtful that Jun was involved. 

"Look for the ripples, not the fish?" Ryu supplies this analogy as they all buckle into their safety harnesses. 

"Exactly. And Joe... stand by on the Bird Missiles. We may need to shoot at a moment's notice." 

Joe snickers. "Don't you worry about _that_." 

Ken turns red all the way down to his briefs. He may be awake and aware now, but he has a feeling he'll be carrying away a few more images to his own dreams. 

But now, they're coming within range of the city. Plumes of smoke are rising, signs of destruction. 

"Look sharp, everyone." 

\--- 

"Well, G-1," said Nambu, "And what did you think of your performance today?" 

Ken stood in front of the desk again. What did he think...? 

_We still lost -- but my stomach doesn't hurt._

Everyone had got clear of the Godphoenix this time after the crash, but ultimately, yet another barrage of the mech's seemingly inexhaustible supply of missiles had finished the game. The mecha would have been destroyed by this too, of course, but the sim didn't seem to concern itself about what Galactor's long term goals might be. A weakness of logic. But it didn't matter. 

"I'm proud of the performance of my team, Hakase." His voice was firm and strong. 

Nambu sat back in his chair. There might have been the slightest smile, but it was quick. 

"I am inclined to agree. In this last mission sequence in particular, your team displayed... initiative and preparation. I've assigned extra marks for real 'outside-the-box' creative problem solving." 

Ken looked up sharply. 

_He couldn't... **know**... could he?_

Nambu went on blithely, "I am discontinuing the REM simulations. From now on I want you and your team to use that time to step up combat readiness..." 

Ken nodded to the new orders, feeling the lingering elation of lucidity strengthen with the knowledge that the no-win scenarios were over. 

_His team_... had done everything he asked of them and more (if creatively). If it had been real life, they would have beat that mecha somehow. 

In the real world, it was possible to win.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "In the middle of a mission, Ken smacks into his own version of the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Jinpei and Joe are both about to die, and from his vantage point, he can only save one of them. What does he do?"
> 
> What do you think of my solution? :)


End file.
